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Monday, February 8, 2010

Top 10 Repertoire of 2005

The middle child of three 2005 Top 10 lists, somewhere between the "main/stream" list (kinda weak) and the "drone/ambient" list (awesome). These are the Top 10 compilations, live albums and other repertoire releases. We got Italian soundtracks, Arabic folk-pop, songwriting and jamming, experimental and psychedelic.Enjoy!

Bardo Pond's always there for you. For some reason, I always seem to pick up their outtake collections. I assume the regular albums are pretty similar: expansive, long-form psychedelic guitar jams that just keep exploring towards the horizons. This one's a 2xCD package of selections from the Selections series, which I believe are tour-sold rarities. Droning and hazy until it cranks up, with low-key female vocals and occasional flute. Whenever I listen to them, I always think how I ought to listen to them more often.

Used to listen to this one quite a bit, but it's been replaced by the Ashes of American Flags dvd downloadable audio content. I'd actually never listened to Wilco until I saw them at the Austin City Limits Festival. Great live band, if you like the music. So, I generally think of them that way. They're still offering .mp3 live shows for Haiti donations here - on the honor system.

Good live document of a band I keep missing whenever they're playing around. I hadn't realized it's a US-only release, since apparently they can't conquer America. But they'll keep trying. You can also get lots of free live shows on .mp3 at Archive.org: here.

Excellent collection from Sublime Frequencies label, which is somehow Sun City Girls-related. I hesitate to say it's their best, because they release a ridiculous amount of material. And several have very good reputations. But I can totally vouch for the Iraqi pop! I was especially blown away by the khishba (or zanbour), a hand-drum that makes an extremely unique rhythm sound. It's Arabic, so sometimes in a foreign key. But the hooks are pure pop power!

From a series of guest-star mixtape CD compilations, the Flaming Lips do an excellent job. Bjork and Miles Davis, Roxy Music and Aphex Twin, Lush and Nick Drake, Radiohead and 10cc. And some cool stuff I'd never heard before. The band contributes their own version of White Stripes' "Seven Nation Army," with Bush-bashing politics and Butthole Surfers' "Moving to Florida" themes. The Flaming Lips also released the Video Overview In Deceleration (VOID) dvd, but Warner Bros botched it by not including pre-WB videos. Awesome.

If for some reason you need convincing, this 2xCD set should clear all doubts. But then you'll need to pick up the 13th Floor Elevators' first 3 albums, and at least 4 or 5 Roky Erickson records. Might as well just go directly to those. But this is a terrific overview and guide!

I wrote a whole post with lots of YouTube action - click on the album title. This is a great (but hard-to-find) collection of some classic old-school avant-pop, brought to you by the graphic artist for Super Furry Animals. The second one has a different focus, but is also worth checking out.

Gotta love Linus Pauling Quartet, so you gotta love a CD-r with everything they'd released so far, plus rarities and demo's, plus an interview. Released as a fund-raiser, it's no longer in print. You can still find some of the included cd's and vinyl sometimes at Sound Exchange in Houston. But I couldn't find any of this material for preview or download.

Fantastic compilation of rarities and unreleased material, from a band that has multiple semi-legit rarities collection floating around the internet. I was surprised so little was on YouTube. If you dig Ween, you should already have this. If you're not there yet, I'm not sure this is the place to start. But what would be? (Wait, I think the answer is the 2003 Live in Chicago dvd!) Also, we got to see Ween at least twice in 2005... At Vegoose Festival #1 in Las Vegas: good. And Halloween night at The Joint at The Hard Rock Casino: boiling hot, temperature- and show-wise! A video of this show also floats around the internet tubes.